Windows Vista: The 'Huh?' Starts Now
Microsoft is losing consumer operating system market share to Apple for many reasons, but most of those reasons can be oversimplified thus: Mac OS is simple, and Windows is complicated. That's why it may be such a costly error for Microsoft to make the Vista upgrade such a CONFUSING MESS. Until today, even experts couldn't tell you off the top of their heads the differences between each of the many Vista versions -- or even how many versions there are -- or what the basic requirements are for the Upgrade versions. Ordinary consumers are baffled to the point of paralysis. HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.
3:16 PM * PERMALINK * 9 comments
Comments:
Thanks, but even an explanation won't make me buy Vista ;)
With all the issues I've had with Windows XP and windows os in general, wild horses couldn't make me buy "Vista"...in fact, I plan on making my next pc a MAC...this is just another money making scheme by Bill Gates (like he needs it) offering a substandard product.
Thanks, this is a great article. With all the issues i have with XP I am pretty sure to switch to MAC. As far as VISTA is concrened I am not even going to consider it till at least one official service pack is out and Microsoft really figure out what direction they are going with this 5 year long VISTA launch.
Hi, Mike,
Great article(s) on the characteristically disastrous Vista intro. It gave me the perfect opportunity to trot out one of my own favorite aphorisms, "Never buy the 1.0 version of anything." Let's be fair to MS (although, when have they ever been?), and make it clear that the problem is by no means limited to them.
I quoted your article (at reasonable length, I hope,) in my post on these twinned subjects:
http://rosswriting.blogspot.com/2007/02/endless-vistas-of-confusion.html
Nicely done,
Bill Ross
http://rosswriting.com
Give me a break! There is a disinformation campaign afoot and I am getting sick of hearing about it everywhere I turn. There are only 4 flavors of Vista. Not 32 or 75 or whatever else people spout off about. If you have old hardware you get Home Basic. If you have or run a small business, get Vista Business. If you are part of the 95% of home PC users get Home Premium. If you don't know if you need Ultimate you probably don't. The rest are just upgrade versions of the preceding. It's that simple.
Well, it took a couple of hours and a few fixes to get Vista onto my Sony Vaio.
I have a Mac, so Vista doesn't impress me all that much, but I wanted to have it on at least one computer because I will see it out in many forms on many computers. I am a DSL technician and I want to know what we are up against.
So far, I am neither happy or unhappy with Vista. I always have my Mac and two XP rigs to fall back on.
I just bought the Home Premium edition. It said on the box "May require a clean install" so with that in mind, I just reformatted the drive with CleanWipe, and was dismayed to find out that Vista would not install at all, I got the message that the upgrade could only be installed from within XP or Win2000. I thought it would be like XP upgrades, where the installation process asks for proof of ownership or an earlier edition of Windows (by way of a CD). But Vista didn't. And, Vista really doesn't offer a clean install, because if you choose a clean install, it still saves all your old stuff in a file called Windows.old, and there was no offer to reformat the drive, like XP does...So, I had to reinstall Windows XP, then install Vista upgrade, and it froze several times, and in teeny tiny print there is a link to restart a corrupted installation. What a pain in the youknowwhat. However, once the whole thing was installed it runs very smoothly, is very pretty, and is a whole lot more complicated than XP with too many choices for novices, and too busy. Mac/Apple found that magic spot of simply elegance. I have to admit though, I love the new file system for folders in Vista. But, guess what? It is now the same/caught up to Apple's!!!!!
I just bought the Home Premium edition. It said on the box "May require a clean install" so with that in mind, I just reformatted the drive with CleanWipe, and was dismayed to find out that Vista would not install at all, I got the message that the upgrade could only be installed from within XP or Win2000. I thought it would be like XP upgrades, where the installation process asks for proof of ownership or an earlier edition of Windows (by way of a CD). But Vista didn't. And, Vista really doesn't offer a clean install, because if you choose a clean install, it still saves all your old stuff in a file called Windows.old, and there was no offer to reformat the drive, like XP does...So, I had to reinstall Windows XP, then install Vista upgrade, and it froze several times, and in teeny tiny print there is a link to restart a corrupted installation. What a pain in the youknowwhat. However, once the whole thing was installed it runs very smoothly, is very pretty, and is a whole lot more complicated than XP with too many choices for novices, and too busy. Mac/Apple found that magic spot of simply elegance. I have to admit though, I love the new file system for folders in Vista. But, guess what? It is now the same/caught up to Apple's!!!!!
"Upon upgrade, this agreement takes the place of the agreement for the software you upgraded from. After you upgrade, you may no longer use the software you upgraded from."
IOW: if you ever need to do a clean reinstall of your new Vista upgrade, you may no longer use your old version of XP for verification.
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